Agent-based simulations of service policy decisions

During service engagements, project managers frequently encounter resource constraint issues. For each resource shortfall encountered, a project manager must decide among a narrow set of alternatives, weighing the resulting effects on project schedule, cost, and customer satisfaction. If a project is part of a larger collection of similar service engagements, it is less clear what the optimal strategy across all projects should be in deciding between alternatives. This paper describes an agent-based simulation environment to explore decision-making policies for hypothetical service business models using different agent-policy combinations. Results suggest advantages for maintaining flexibility in handling resource shortfall actions. © 2007 IEEE.